S&W made for sale to British

[Cliff]

Picked this old smith a few years back. This gun was made in 1940. It's a 38 S&W with a lanyard ring and a 5in barrel. It has a civilian blue finish and checkered grips. Don't think this one ever crossed the pond. It had a very low round count when I bought it. It was made before lend lease or the victory guns.
Cliff

[ffuries]

You got a nice one there.

Stupid question time now.....Are pistols with lanyard rings indicative of Police and/or Military use, or did commercial weapons also have the lanyard rings?

[Junk Yard Dog]

[steelbuttplate]

The Britts had a contract with S&W to make the M1940 sub machine gun. The M1940 was a failure as it had a heavy bull barrel and the bolt started to come apart after a few hundred rounds. To fulfill their contract, S&W made a variety of pistols to send to England, starting with ones they already had made and then the Victory series.

[Cliff]

The lanyard ring was mostly a pol dept special order or a common wealth order. If you got one pistol from s&w it was a special order.
If it had the lanyard it was built from scratch that way. If you look at a victory you can see the placement of the serial # and the lanyard hole. They also had to be drilled for the pin. I don't think mine was ever issued to the military.
Cliff

[steelbuttplate]

The Britts had a contract with S&W to make the M1940 sub machine gun. The M1940 was a failure as it had a heavy bull barrel and the bolt started to come apart after a few hundred rounds. To fulfill their contract, S&W made a variety of pistols to send to England, starting with ones they already had made and then the Victory series.

I didn't remember that exactly right, the bolt on these beating against the receiver on these caused the receivers to break. And it was a semi-auto 9mm. Called a light rifle at 9 lb., The Britts got 950 of them before rejecting the rest.